When I was younger, my family had a particular book of songs for the piano. They were popular songs and the difficulty was probably intermediate or thereabouts. Among the songs in this book were Chim Chim Cheree and a Spoonful of Sugar from Mary Poppins, as well as Greensleeves. The book fell apart (literally -- the glue unbound, pages fell out, etc) years ago and my family eventually got rid of it. I would love to find a copy of this book again, but I don't remember what it was called...

So I don't have a name for the book, nor for the editor, nor any names of anyone who arranged the music. All I remember is that there was a delightful arrangement of Greensleeves (and the two Mary Poppins songs). I seem to recall the book was very, very thick and it may have had a number like "500" in the title, like 500 piano songs or something like that. The cover, if I'm remembering right, was a shade like maroon and (I could be reaching here) I think the lettering on the cover was gold. Posting here in the hopes of finding the book in question!

The reason I'm searching for the book is primarily for that particular arrangement of Greensleeves. I taught myself to play it when I was a kid and I still know how to play it with my right hand, but my left hand seems to have forgotten chunks, over the years. I can absolutely tell you what notes the right-hand plays throughout the entire song, so if there's a method of searching sheet music for a particular arrangement, that could work, too. (Is there? If not, there ought to be.)

I guess I could narrow down the time frame a bit better than "when I was a kid" (thanks for making me think of that, Lutoslawski!). We probably bought it around 1987ish, likely no earlier than 1986, probably no later than 1990-1991, so somewhere between 1986-1991. We bought it new.posted by juliebug at 3:25 PM on January 21, 2014

If it's not that one, can you remember anything else about the appearance of the book? Did it have a colorful cover? Plain? Was it large type or small type? Did the arrangements have the original melody with lyrics underneath the music staves?posted by blu_stocking at 5:37 PM on January 22, 2014

Thanks, blu_stocking, but that's not it.

I did mention above that I believe it was a maroonish colour with (I believe) gold text. I'm fairly certain the text was rather large.

Most, if not all, of the arrangements had the lyrics of the songs. Certainly they were there for the Greensleeves arrangement. (And they weren't the What Child is This lyrics, they were "Alas, my love, you do me wrong, to cast me off discourteously" or whatever the actual lyrics are.)

As mentioned before, it was a thick book. I used to know the page number for my favourite songs (Greensleeves, the Mary Poppins songs) and at least one of those was in the 300 page range.

Thanks so much for your efforts! :)posted by juliebug at 12:48 AM on January 23, 2014

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